Temperance
Temperance symbolizes balance, moderation, and mindful intention. It encourages looking inward to find purpose and acting with conscious awareness. The card's imagery, including an angel with one foot on land and the other in water, highlights this theme. The card calls for patience and thoughtful action instead of impulsive behavior.
Keywords
Card Imagery
This one is a rather straightforward interpretation of the Temperance card. It features all the usual trappings of an angelic figure standing with one foot on land and the other dipped into a body of water, pouring the self-same water from one vessel to another, and an iris flower blooming nearby. I simplified the design slightly from Smith-Waite imagery to the older, more basic designs with a less elaborate landscape. I wanted the illustration to be less distracting to the eye overall, with just a few elements to really focus and tie the meaning of it together. To me, Temperance is a card that looks within, rather than without.
Angel Representation
The only real deviation here is in the way the angel himself is represented. In most Temperance cards I have seen, the figure, being an angel, is meant to be interpreted either as genderless, or, more often, as feminine. There is a visual shorthand of assumed gentleness and mildness that comes along with a feminized image, which I wanted to change by making the figure explicitly masculine. I like the idea of gentle, tender, temperate and comforting masculinity, and I felt it suited the card.
Symbolism of the Brook
The brook around the figure babbles wildly, yet smooths into a calmer flow along the edge of the card, the way our thoughts sometimes run ahead of us with stress and anxiety. We must be reminded to temper them lest we get swept away. Temperance calls for balance, moderation, patience and mindful intention in our behavior.
Meaning of Intention
What intention means to me is simply acting with purpose rather than on impulse. Temperance encourages us to take the time required to figure out what that purpose is, and then to go forward and act with conscious awareness of our motives.
Fyodor Pavlov tarot
💜 Please support creators. Buy official decks.
ℹ️ Disclaimer
All card images and descriptions are taken from public sources. They are used for review purposes only. All rights to these images and descriptions belong to their creators. If you believe there is a copyright infringement, please contact us at [email protected].